Windows 10 isn't going to search & destroy all your pirated games

[HEXUS]

There has been a lot of confusion over an updated Microsoft Services EULA.

Read more.

[lumireleon]

windows? sorry there are already cracked version of W10 that perform better, IT gurus are not dumb........wait even osx is not tight to hackers many people use it on DELL and HP

[Corky34]

So for those terms not to apply we need to install a version of Windows 10 that doesn't come with those listed services?

EDIT: To call it either way seems a bit presumptuous to me, even Mary Jo Foley is saying that how Microsoft chooses to implement this new clause is an unknown at best.

[Saracen]

So for those terms not to apply we need to install a version of Windows 10 that doesn't come with those listed services?

EDIT: To call it either way seems a bit presumptuous to me, even Mary Jo Foley is saying that how Microsoft chooses to implement this new clause is an unknown at best.

Fo me, too.

...

It is not going to start monitoring your general software and hardware usage outside of these types of walled-garden services it provides.

....

That's one interpretation. It's not the only one possible from that services agreement

Oh, and Corky .... as I read it, to avoid that services agreement, just close any accounts/services you have that it covers. So, close any MS account, Skype, Consumer Office 365, etc. But you should be able to continue using Win10 without that service agreement if you don't use any of those services. You'll still be subject to the EULA, and Orivacy Policy though.

The biggest single impact of that agreement seems to me to be bringing all these disparate services under one single umbrella agreement, where you'll be subject to that agreement, with specific services also covered by service-specific sections, instead of being covered by numerous agreements, all of which ONLY relate to that service.

Oh, and note the bit in that agreement that says MS can also implement ANY changes it likes to that agreement, and that by continuing to use "services" you agree to the changes. So, if you don't like changes they make to, say, Skype, you have to close your acvount and lose XBox and (consumer) Office 365, cloud storage services (etc) too. You can't just stop using Skype.

[crossy]

Oh, and note the bit in that agreement that says MS can also implement ANY changes it likes to that agreement, and that by continuing to use "services" you agree to the changes. So, if you don't like changes they make to, say, Skype, you have to close your account and lose XBox and (consumer) Office 365, cloud storage services (etc) too. You can't just stop using Skype.

I know that you didn't mean this - but I initially read that to mean that you think that Big Bad Microsoft is going to force you to use all of it's services/products if you only want a subset. So expecting a balloon popup of "You have failed to Skype for at least 60 minutes this month, so access to Excel is currently disabled", and cue random Skype-age just to get back the features you do actually want.

With your hypothetical case, if they change the T&C's for one product to ones I dislike then I'll sure as heck stop using that particular product. What are MS going to do ... sue me? After all, it's not as if any of their services/products are unique in the market, and if they impose Tea-Party-Dumb restrictions on use, then I'm taking my "business" elsewhere, and I'm 100% positive that I'm not alone in that.

Personally I think this just another (in a long line of) Microsoft SNAFU with respect to Windows. Oh, and I have ZERO pirated games. Actually what would bother me a heck of a lot more is those dopey b's dropping software onto my (currently hypothetical) W10 box that incorrectly identifies software as hacked/pirated/etc, then reported that I'd got pirated software to FAST etc.

As the smart ... donkey ... I know said "Magnus frater spectat te semper"

(And yes, *I* had to look it up too - don't ya just hate a showoff!)

[Corky34]

Oh, and Corky .... as I read it, to avoid that services agreement, just close any accounts/services you have that it covers. So, close any MS account, Skype, Consumer Office 365, etc. But you should be able to continue using Win10 without that service agreement if you don't use any of those services. You'll still be subject to the EULA, and Orivacy Policy though.

If, and it's a big if, Microsoft started disabling counterfeit software and hardware, It would probably be impossible to prove that you didn't use any of those listed services that come bundled with Windows 10, my guess is that Microsoft could provide logs of when and for how long you accessed each and every service as even with the strictest privacy settings Windows 10 is still communicating with Microsoft.

Arstechnica has show that even with Cortana and searching the Web from the Start menu disabled, opening Start and typing will send a request to bing.com, and even when you don't use OneDrive Windows 10 still seems to be talking to the OneDrive servers, actively not using those services in Windows 10 doesn't seem to stop you from using them, if that makes sense.

[cjs150]

I have a few things from my W10 I would be happy for MS to remove starting with Groove music (horrible interface, even worse than Xbox music on w8, thank goodness WMP still exists), and file explorer (interface not updated since XP possibly earlier and it shows)

[Saracen]

I know that you didn't mean this - but I initially read that to mean that you think that Big Bad Microsoft is going to force you to use all of it's services/products if you only want a subset. So expecting a balloon popup of "You have failed to Skype for at least 60 minutes this month, so access to Excel is currently disabled", and cue random Skype-age just to get back the features you do actually want.

With your hypothetical case, if they change the T&C's for one product to ones I dislike then I'll sure as heck stop using that particular product. What are MS going to do ... sue me? After all, it's not as if any of their services/products are unique in the market, and if they impose Tea-Party-Dumb restrictions on use, then I'm taking my "business" elsewhere, and I'm 100% positive that I'm not alone in that.

Personally I think this just another (in a long line of) Microsoft SNAFU with respect to Windows. Oh, and I have ZERO pirated games. Actually what would bother me a heck of a lot more is those dopey b's dropping software onto my (currently hypothetical) W10 box that incorrectly identifies software as hacked/pirated/etc, then reported that I'd got pirated software to FAST etc.

As the smart ... donkey ... I know said "Magnus frater spectat te semper"

(And yes, *I* had to look it up too - don't ya just hate a showoff!)

Yeah, .I do wish people wouldn't show off with Latin. It's as if they've never heard of Goo...... erm, DuckDuckGo.


Oh, wait .....

And no, I didn't mean your first reading of it. Just that by unifying the agreements into one, you can't decline changes to just one, without closing your MS account, etc, and losing access to all the others, too.

On the one hand, I sympathise with MS. Having a dozen different but very similar agreements isn't great, either. This puts them all in one place.

Also, "simplifying language" to make them easier tocread and understand is laudable BUT .... any lawyer will tell you that legal agreements tend to be in very fussy language because even just moving a comma can change the meaning of a sentence, and legal agreements generally try to be as specific and unambiguous as possible, because disagreements over meaning tend to be resolved in long and very expensive court cases.

And in this case, MS are a hugely wealthy company with a large in-house legal team and the money to hire an army of the best external lawyers on the planet. Whereas you, or I, trying to argue meaning in court, against that ....

I think what MS are under-estimating is the extent of good will lost after a number of recent events, and the fact that trust from a large part of the IT community is at an all-time low.

[Luke7]

In short, no. Blackberry 10 software has two (at least) android based appstores, one of which ships as standard (Amazon appstore) however, any app that relies on Google play services, snapchat for example, WILL NOT WORK on the os.

[GuidoLS]

I have a few things from my W10 I would be happy for MS to remove starting with Groove music (horrible interface, even worse than Xbox music on w8, thank goodness WMP still exists), and file explorer (interface not updated since XP possibly earlier and it shows)

Open powershell as admin

copy/paste -

Get-AppxPackage *zunemusic* | Remove-AppxPackage

Bye bye groove music. Sorry - you're stuck with the file explorer.

[Luke7]

In short, no. Blackberry 10 software has two (at least) android based appstores, one of which ships as standard (Amazon appstore) however, any app that relies on Google play services, snapchat for example, WILL NOT WORK on the os.

Woops! Wrong thread!

[crossy]

Arstechnica has show that even with Cortana and searching the Web from the Start menu disabled, opening Start and typing will send a request to bing.com, and even when you don't use OneDrive Windows 10 still seems to be talking to the OneDrive servers, actively not using those services in Windows 10 doesn't seem to stop you from using them, if that makes sense.

Interesting, I wonder if the old trick of putting in a hosts override would work... (I hate Bing!)

The OneDrive stuff doesn't surprise me at all - it's a throwback to the old days where Microsoft insisted on bundling in all these "valuable" services. Personally I think the whole OneDrive install, and especially on W8+, was done badly. Taking a simple example - OD can operate in "cloud" or "sync" modes, given that most folks are migrating from non-cloud you'd think that "sync" would be the default (so you have a local/offline copy of the file), nope, it's defaulted to cloud.

Don't get me wrong, I use - and quite like - OneDrive generally, but that's because it's quite quick, (generally) quite easy to use and keenly priced.

I think what MS are under-estimating is the extent of good will lost after a number of recent events, and the fact that trust from a large part of the IT community is at an all-time low.

Couldn't agree more. There was already a lot of griping about W8 and the MUI debacle, and we seem to have had just a series of appallingly badly handled announcements, or "features" that have most sensible tech's screaming "for all that's holy ... NO!"

Maybe Apple should buy them....

[peterb]

<---snip

I think what MS are under-estimating is the extent of good will lost after a number of recent events, and the fact that trust from a large part of the IT community is at an all-time low.

Big assumption there... That they had any goodwill left to lose. They lost my goodwill about 20 years ago, they have now converted my will to a won't.

[PuremasterZ]

but my pirated games

[peterb]

but my pirated games

If you pirate software you deserve Al, you get, so no sympathy here.

[Saracen]

Big assumption there... That they had any goodwill left to lose. They lost my goodwill about 20 years ago, they have now converted my will to a won't.

Point taken.

I have still been using MS stuff day-to-day, though. But I have ALWAYS taken the attitude that the one to decide when, and indeed IF I upgrade is to be me. That certainly included Win8 (no), Vista (no), and WinME (definitely no) but it goes right back to an .... erm .... less than impressive MS-DOS release or two, for which I was also a firm "no way".

For me, the rot really set in with, ironically, Adobe, and their mandatory shift to a subscription model with Photoshop. I thought about it and decided I am NOT, in any universe, paying for mainstream software packages on subscription. I AM going to be the one that decides when and if I upgrade, and I'll do it on the basis of what said upgrade costs, what it offers and indeed, if I actually want or need those features. And subscription Photoshop is an utter non-starter. So, I'll stick to my current version, and if that ceases to be adequate, I'll look for a non-Adobe product. But an on-going, never-ending stream of money going out, oh, hell, no. No way, no how.

Then, MS started going the same way, and there's 'always-on, always-connected' for Xbox, and worse, for Kinect, and MUI, and so on.

As far as I'm concerned, MS have transformed from wanting to, and succeeding in, selling product to me, to the point where "services" require a subscription, and they want my personal information to sell me, and all of us, as the product. Well, to hell with that.

Maybe I caught on much later than you, but now, when I read MS 'agreements', like their privacy policy, it CERTAINLY isn't from a mindset of "what does it appear to say", but rather, from a stance of "if I was MS and trying to construe that to my maximum benefit, what could I argue it to say". As soon as you introduce ambiguity, my attitude is that I have to be willing to agree to it in whatever it says when construed to MS's maximum advantage. And for that services agreement, I'm not prepared to. Nor am I prepared to switch to a system that MS can change however they like, in whatever way they like, and have MY computers automatically upgraded to MS's benefit, without permission or even over adamant objection. That lesson came from Win 8, and their sincere attempts to shove MUI down our throats, like it or not. Not, in my case. That destroyed any vestigial good will I may have had.

I now know (having tested it) that I can/could survive as an MS-free zone and surprisingly, do so with far less effort, and pain, than I thought. So, when Win7, or at most, a de-MUI'd and non-MS-account Win8, no longer serves me, I will do just that.